Malum
by bugsfic
Summary: Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it...


"I think you should get a rape kit from the lab-"

"No."

"I'm not saying that you go through a screening at a hospital. You could do it yourself."

"No."

"Scully, you told me yourself that you were unconscious for an unknown amount of time with that man-"

"Drop me off at home, Mulder."

But he doesn't leave after she slams his car door. He parks across the street from her building; she can make out its familiar shape clearly even in the dark. He's hiding in plain sight, thinking she'll relent and call him, demand that he come up and talk like a man. She closes her blinds, turning his view to a blank wall.

The phone is cold in her hand.

"They did a rape screening on me when I was returned from my abduction, right?"

He can't answer.

"Did you read that report?" She doesn't give him time to reply. "Did you read about my vaginal secretions? Condition of my inner and outer labia?"

"Scully."

"Can you even begin to comprehend how that would feel to know? That a stranger looked at and touched my genitals while I was unconscious-and it was different from my medical rape by Them...how? That you and Skinner read that report-were there photographs accompanying the report?"

"We were trying to solve a crime."

"That makes it all better."

She hangs up. That probably isn't the conversation that he planned on having.

Her pajamas are clammy as she puts them on, sliding across her discontent limbs like damp leaves, but it feels good. Her body is heated and heavy since she's returned from her little weekend away. It reminds her of a long lost monthly sensation, when her equilibrium would be off and she was in the grip of something beyond her control.

Other women called it a curse, but for Scully, it was an inconvenience having to deal with the practical matter of being trapped on long stakeouts with Mulder, or out wandering deep woods for hours on end. She didn't like that sense of vulnerability; of being the girl. But tonight she's safe in her own home, and chalks the sensation up to her anger, that it has bloomed hot as a crimson rose. The weight sinks low in her abdomen as a swollen blossom would hang tenuously from its slender stem. She dares Mulder to pluck the flower; the petals will rain down like blood, leaving nothing but the thorns for him to grasp.

She lets her phone ring until one ring before it goes to voicemail.

"I don't expect you to understand why I'm angry and worried about you. You come from a very different kind of family."

"I lived on military bases, Mulder. I hate to tell you, but your type of family was pretty common. My parents were just lucky to be in love."

"I'm sure Bill and Teena were in love for ten minutes at some point." His voice has that blankness that Scully enjoys. She can assign any emotion she needs to it. "I just...This guy slept with my mother. It isn't even the being my father part. It's...That he felt that way about my mother and she felt the way that she did...Seems to have felt that way until the end. The things that she'd still do for him, even when she said that she hated him. Just like you said you hate him."

Scully doesn't like being compared to Teena Mulder for many reasons, but she knows when to keep her mouth shut, and it's when a man is talking about his recently deceased mother.

"And to now know that bastard feels the same way about you-"

"Mulder, he doesn't. He needed me for something, that's all."

"He's always told me that he likes you. I just wasn't listening."

"Liked me? As in, we're in seventh grade?" Scully shakes her head. "I think you're putting too much thought into this, like everything else."

"I have nothing to do but think, Scully." The edges of his words are knife-sharp and the released poison seeps from her festering wounds. "He's kept you alive all these years because he liked you. He had some purpose-"

"Because he knew you'd kill him first, then every one of Them, slowly and painfully, if I was to die at their hands."

She shouldn't have said that. He's tricked her into acknowledging his love. She can hear his smile over the phone.

"This has that feeling of when a guy wants to know about all my former lovers. That conversation never ends well. You haven't asked before and now I sort of wished you had."

"I haven't had to. I think I know them all by now."

There's one more that he doesn't know about. The one she's most ashamed of, even more than some bar pickup would ever be. She gives a hum and now it's her turn to smile cruelly as she hears his replying grunt of surprise. Yes, Mulder, more lies by omission wait out there.

"I understand," he says, condescending. "He said what you wanted to hear. It was a seduction—that's what I mean about it being like my mother. I'm not believing that you would fuck him—but you allowed him another type of intimacy."

"How generous of you." She flicks the blinds wide open enough to stare at his car. His hand is pressed to his forehead in the silhouette.

His chuckle shakes like bones in a jar "Then again, you let me into your bed and I'm probably the worse guy that you can do that with."

"Sometimes you're so tiresome, Mulder. Relentlessness about obscure paranormal minutia is one thing, but your capacity for self-loathing just makes me want to smack you on a nearly daily basis."

"Not if it's true."

"Do you understand that by saying you're not worthy of fucking, what that says about me?"

He corrects her: "I'm saying I'm not worth of making love to."

The daring in his words is like a glowing pot on a stove, drawing her hand closer and closer-

"Please, Scully-"

"Don't ever beg with me, Mulder."

"You don't like that...Not even a little bit?"

That sly smile in his voice is back and she wonders who is seducing whom. He would protest that he was incapable of seduction, that his feelings toward her were as simple and honest as a eight year old boy's—except for the incredible sex part.

"You're bad," she growls and hangs up the phone again.

She'd never deceived Mulder before. Not just because it was obvious that a lot of women in his life had deceived him and she wanted to be different. That would have been noble reason that she'd say aloud to a therapist. The real reason, the reason that stuck under her skin like a sliver; she was incapable of lying to him. He'd immediately seen through her attempts as she'd gone off with Spender. But she'd have to try one more time tonight, with feeling.

The knock batters around in her skull. She's been waiting with her forehead against the solid heft of her front door. She cracks it open and looks him up and down. He fills the space from the top of his rumpled hair to the thick soles of his black boots. She opens it just enough to let him slip through and blocks his way from going any further into her apartment. Standing close, she can only focus on the concave depression in his tee shirt, and watches it rise and fall with his breathing.

He has to bend in a painful manner when she won't help him out. "Scully," he whispers in her ear. "I was worried."

Her fingers creep between his low-slung waistband and his shirt's hem to find the cut of his waist, the first rib, then the next...Where's the missing one for her to fit in? Her thumb brushes his nipple instead.

He tries again. "Scully, I want to talk to you-"

She needs to show him how easy seduction is; it was for the smoking bastard, when he gave her just what she wanted. Could she give Mulder what he wanted, just to prove a point?

"We are talking," she says, right before going up on her toes to seal her mouth over his.

He falls back against the door with a thump. She straddles his thigh, squeezing it tightly, trapping him.

Cold fingers at her pajama bottoms waistband...Shimmying them down, silk whispering unseemly thoughts in the darkness as they slide off her heated skin. Another set of fingers fumble at the buttons of her top, just enough open to give entry to the hand, covering her breast, sinking onto its warmth as a whimpering puppy finds its bed.

She seeks his fly in the dark, hearing the zipper opening as a loud ripping sound, a scream of terror. Frantic gasps at the back of her throat pull his tongue deeper into her mouth; she is finally afraid. But she can't stop this now that she's started.

Turning and lifting in the same movement, he slams her against the door, his thrust resetting her manic heartbeat. Her pulse matches his as it flutters inside her body with the strokes of a crow's wings. She lay her head on his shoulder, rocking there, her lips resting on his carotid artery to ride his river's course.

Her fingers, strong as a tree's seeking roots, lace through his hair, bringing his ear to her lips. "I love you, Mulder," she says and his heart breaks within her, flooding her with his life. Her seduction is complete, and she feels triumph swirl around them like sharp smoke.


End file.
